Supervisor Kate Sears inviting you to a hearing on the DRAFT Multi-Family Residential Design Guidelines

Monday, April 22nd at 11:00 am
Marin County Planning Commission Chambers
Room 328, Marin County Civic Center
Read here for details.

The Planning Commission will continue its hearing on the Draft Multi-family Residential Design Guidelines on Monday, April 22, 2013. This item is now scheduled to begin at 11:00am in the Planning Commission Chambers of the Marin County Civic Center.  The Planning Commission action will be to review the public record and recommend adoption of the guidelines to the Board of Supervisors.

The staff report and attachments is available online at www.marincounty.org/multifamily. Please feel free to forward this information to members of your community or other interested parties.

TIME REVISED FOR PUBLIC HEARING ON MULTI-FAMILY RESIDENTIAL DESIGN GUIDELINES

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that a hearing will be held by the Planning Commission on April 22, 2013 starting at 11:00 am or after at the Planning Commission Chambers (Suite #328 – Administration Building) Civic Center, San Rafael, California. The subject of the hearing will be the merits of the draft Multi-family Residential Design Guidelines, and is a continuation of the publicly noticed Planning Commission hearing held on February 25, 2013. The Planning Commission action will be to review the public record and recommend adoption of the guidelines to the Board of Supervisors. 

The Multi-family Residential Design Guidelines (MFR guidelines) are intended to define positive design attributes and set clear expectations regarding the character of multi-unit and mixed-use buildings in unincorporated Marin County communities. The MFR guidelines provide general design criteria that would apply in every type of community. This includes building proportion, scale, and relationship to the public realm, street frontages, building materials, outdoor space, lighting and landscaping. Additional place-based guidelines promote context-sensitive design through specific design criteria for residential neighborhoods, mixed-use centers, and rural towns. Guidelines also set forth criteria for parking placement, street improvements, and paths. Acceptable development patterns for each type of place are described. The design criteria in the guidelines will provide a basis for Design Review findings in project review and approval. 

The MFR guidelines will help implement Program DES-1.e (Expand Design Guidelines) of the Marin Countywide Plan. The certified 2007 Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Marin Countywide Plan (CWP) adequately evaluated the Multi-family Residential Design Guidelines, which functions as an implementing program to the CWP. A subsequent or supplemental EIR is not required because the proposed project does not include substantial changes involving new or substantially more severe significant environmental effects, nor does the proposal involve new information that was not known at the time the EIR for the CWP was certified.

In lieu of hard copies, the staff report and attachments will be available online after April 12, 2013 at:  www.marincounty.org/multifamily. A copy is also available for public review at the Community Development Agency, Planning Division, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday-Thursday (closed Fridays). Oral and written comments may be presented to the Planning Commission at the hearing. Written material for the Planning Commissioners should be submitted to the Community Development Agency at least 10 business days prior to the meeting date. Any written material submitted after this date will be distributed to the Planning Commission prior to or at the meeting. Public comments may be directed to the Planning Commission, via email to multifamily@marincounty.org, fax to (415) 473-7880, or mailed to the Community Development Agency at the address below. More information may be found on the MFR guidelines website (www.marincounty.org/multifamily) or Planning Commission website (http://www.marincounty.org/PlanningCommission). Written material should not be mailed or delivered directly to Planning Commissioners because it will not be accepted or considered as part of the administrative record for the project.